WALKER'S EXHAUSTIVE BIBLE CONCORDANCE
Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, Michigan, $12.95.
One of my dreams of twenty years has come true. The very finest text-finder concordance ever published in the English language has been out of print for many years. Now it is available again under the new title, Walker's Exhaustive Bible Concord ance. This concordance is not so much like Young's or Strong's, but is a text finder like Cruden's. Cruden's has been out for 239 years. It is a monumental work. For a number of years now it has been the only text finder avail able. Walker's is more comprehensive, with 50,000 more en tries, all alphabetically arranged.
This volume is the ideal tool for anyone working with the Bible. Every one of our ministers ought to have it, as well as all our lay men who are Bible students. It is one simple and absolutely necessary tool—a quick text finder that is superior to all others. I have encouraged Mr. Kregel, a personal acquaintance and friend of mine, in its publication. And now I encourage every Bible student to avail himself of it.
H. M. S. Richards, Sr.
THE MAKING OF A MISSIONARY
J. Herbert Kane, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1975, 114 pages, $2.95.
A very readable and excellent orientation to the missionary task of the Christian church, and especially in today's setting. An ideal introduction for the prospective new missionary and those interested in missions and the missionary.
The author has served as a missionary and is currently teaching in the area of missions at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois. His presentation is up-to-date and is in an interesting format.
The author covers such areas as the call to missionary service, the myths regarding missions, the changing roles of the missionary, the changing roles of the sending and receiving churches, current opportunities for missions, and the main opposing forces to the accomplishment of the church's mission. Every Christian worker will have his vision of missions broadened by a reading of this book.
Edwin Gibb
THE APPEALS TO MEN OF REASON AND RELIGION: VOLUME II OF THE WORKS OF JOHN WESLEY. Edited by Gerald R. Cragg. 557 pages. 100 pages of illustrations. Published February 5, 1976. $29.95.
One hundred forty years after the last major revision of John Wesley's Works Oxford University Press has published the first of a projected series of more than thirty volumes of the work of the great evangelist. Oxford's series reflects the quickened interest in John Wesley, who has always been recognized as a great evangelist and church reformer but who has more recently begun to be recognized as a constructive theologian with an important contribution to make to modern theology.
Since 1831 most publications of the Wesley corpus either have been reprints of a fourteen-volume edition by Thomas Jackson or have been based on it. But the fact remains that the Jackson edition, for all its virtues in its time, is marred by textual flaws, deficient annotations, careless printing and proofreading, significant omissions, and inclusion of items not by Wesley. In view of this, Oxford's and the project's prime intention is to uphold ex acting standards of critical editorial practice in providing definitive texts, presented in a format that will be both readable and useful to scholars and the general public.
The series includes all of Wesley's original or mainly original prose works—his letters, sermons, journals, and diaries, as well as his specifically doctrinal writings. Altogether the edition will run to something like 5 million words of Wesley text, together with another million words of editorial introductions and interpretations. To this end, an international, interdenominational team of editors and consultants has been enlisted in the enterprise.
The first available volume, The Appeals, contains the writings in which Wesley attempted to correct misconceptions about his movement. Accused by detractors of being an "enthusiast" or fanatic, Wesley presented in the course of his defense a careful summary of his essential teachings. From them he emerges as a remarkable personality who led one of the great religious movements of modern times. The Ap peals and the volumes that follow will contribute to a reassessment of the importance of Wesley in the history of Western religious thought.
Oxford University Press
